According
to TVC NEWS, Burundi's opposition has urged
voters to boycott the presidential election due on Tuesday, warning the vote
would deepen political deadlock in the country.
President Pierre Nkurunziza's
decision to seek a third-term in office has plunged the small east African
nation into its worst crisis since an ethnically charged civil war ended in
2005.
Though street protests and a would-be coup were quelled, almost daily violence has left the country on a knife edge.
Though street protests and a would-be coup were quelled, almost daily violence has left the country on a knife edge.
There were unconfirmed media reports posted on Twitter of an explosion in the capital Bujumbura late on Monday. No further details were immediately available.
Diplomats worry that the disorder
may see Burundi slide back into civil war, a frightening prospect for a Great
Lakes region still scarred by the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which about 800,000
Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.
Nkurunziza's government has pledged
to push ahead with the July 21 election, ignoring calls from the African Union
(AU), United States and other Western powers for the vote to be delayed due to
growing insecurity.
Charles Nditije, leader of the
Uprona party, which is part of the opposition Amizero Y'abarundi coalition,
called on the outside world not to recognise a vote in which Nkurunziza will
stand unopposed after the opposition withdrew from the race.
"I am urging Burundi citizens
not to go to polls this July 21 which are not democratic," he told Reuters
via phone in the capital Bujumbura.
An AU official on Monday confirmed
the regional body would not be sending election monitors to Burundi because
"the conditions are not conducive for credible, transparent, free and fair
elections".
Jacob Enoh Eben, spokesman for
African Union Commission Chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, said that if the
vote went ahead the AU would meet to "debate on the way forward".
Opposition parties say Nkurunziza's
re-election bid is unconstitutional and are boycotting the election race. The
president cites a court ruling declaring he can run for five more years in
office.
Months of talks between the two
sides have yielded almost no results, and the latest negotiations broke down on
Sunday when the government mediator did not show up for discussions.
Government spokesman Philippe
Nzobonariba said the vote, which was delayed from June 26, would not be put
back again and he urged Burundians to go to the polls "en masse to express
their legitimate will".
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